


Rest Stops and Reminisces

by intothemidnightblue



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Don't copy to another site, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 23:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20034244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intothemidnightblue/pseuds/intothemidnightblue
Summary: Godless spaces do exist, and it’s where the angels finally exhale...





	Rest Stops and Reminisces

Godless spaces do exist, and it’s where the angels finally exhale. In a liminal pit stop between here and now and then, with fancy motion sensor toilets in the restrooms that you always have to press the button on anyway, is the place you will sometimes find angels, acting just like you and me, putting their hands under the manual faucet because if the toilet was automatic, surely the faucet is too, yet alas, these liminal spaces put the here and now and then in every small action, including as you would look for a paper towel and find only filthy modernity in the air dryer. Turn around and escape the bathroom that hasn’t been cleaned since the Notpocalypse all those many years ago. The dust is the only thing allowed to exist here for more than a moment. Try sleeping a night on the bench and wake up in your childhood bed, and forget you ever were more than you are; a child facing the creaking closet as they escape the bonds of sleep.

Should an angel rest his head here, where would he go? Hence why the five-hour energies are always out of stock. The longer Aziraphale waited, the more he could feel the blanket of perpetuity guiding him somewhere warm and cold. To the place where you look in the dark and see everywhere. Where is your blind spots but on your eyes? These are the holy godless spaces. Where She would turn her head and see shadows in the corners of her eyes, and mouths that make no sound.

The machine was kicked in frustration, Aziraphale not even glancing at the attacker on his quest to shake the last energy shot out of the vending machine. No miracles or temptations in these spaces would help. The wild-familiar gilded blandness of your local rest stop acts as a shield against all things. Like the safe zone under your father’s legs when the game of tag in the garden is wearing you thin.

“Gabriel, please,” Aziraphale hushed his neighbour’s frenzied pounding with sharp annoyance.

“I give up, you win. Please?” Gabriel expressed, hands mocking a prayer. Aziraphale kicked the machine and the energy shot fell into the collection tray.

“Actually fuck you,” Gabriel pawed through the flap with stifled urgency.

“Not likely,” Aziraphale responded airily.

“Speaking of which, spill about the boyfriend,” Gabriel leaned up against the machine casually, drinking the energy shot like a college frat boy at a party before yeeting the bottle into the trashcan closest to them.

“I’m not picking that up for you,” Aziraphale said.

“It will be gone in a moment,” Gabriel reasoned.

“Yes, because you picked it up,” Aziraphale said sternly.

“Bossy...” Gabriel mumbled but moved to pick up the failed throw anyway.

“There’s nothing to tell, anyway,” Aziraphale sighed.

“‘Nothing to tell,’” Gabriel mimed rudely, “last I saw you guys, he kicked me through a window and Beelzebub was getting pummeled by an OP umbrella. I didn’t catch much of the conversation on the way down but right before Crowley kicked me, he definitely asked if you wanted to get married, and I could hear your yes from the fourth floor.”

“We were discussing the tax benefits of marriage in the car to the realtors- stop it!” Aziraphale glared as Gabriel continued to pettily mime back his words with flair.

“No one really marries for the benefits! You were buying a house together for Her sake!” Gabriel threw his hands up in exasperation.

“We’ve married before! It’s not that big of a deal!” Aziraphale copied Gabriel’s expressive outburst.

“I would say it should have been a far bigger deal back then!” Gabriel’s voice shifted incredulously.

“I did not meet you to argue about my boyfriend!” Aziraphale said.

“Your fiancé!” Gabriel retorted.

_If it weren’t for the laws of this land_... Aziraphale thought to himself, though he stayed silent, glancing at the analogue clock above the vending machines. Gabriel glanced as well.

“What I wanted to talk about...” Gabriel finally got on task, “is the war.”

“I’m not joining you,” Aziraphale said flatly, “or them!”

“That’s not... it,” Gabriel quieted, despite the natural impossibility of anyone overhearing them in this place, “I have a confession.”

“The moment you say it, it becomes,” Aziraphale warned.

“What do I do, I can’t be... Crowley. I’m an angel, I must be. I believe... I still believe in her, I really do, it’s everyone else. Metatron especially.”

“Metatron only speaks Her words.”

“You say that... but you haven’t been up in so long. There’s something different happening... he doesn’t outright call for war but he seems to whisper for it. And I remember the great plan... the ineffable plan... and I wonder who gave each side the great plan instead of the ineffable one.”

“Like losing a baby.”

“Sure.”

“The ineffable plan... it is this war. It has to be,” Aziraphale expressed.

“The only winner will be Her,” Gabriel said with solemn ferocity.

“I don’t know how to help you, Gabriel, I’m sorry.”

“How did you do it? How are you...” Gabriel motioned to all of Aziraphale, “and still haven’t burnt your wings to a crisp?”

“I can’t tell you what She knows... maybe it’s because I still think... I still think she’s going to save us in the end. That everything this is leading up to, it will end in a big reveal and we will be... I don’t know... exalted? Cleansed? Changed forever once again. I just... I still believe in her. Maybe that’s all it takes.”

“And your boyfriend?”

“My fiancé is... unsure about things when it comes to Her. He still loves her, but I don’t think he remembers how to believe in her with the doubts he carries.”

“What if... I carry those same doubts?”

“You don’t, Gabriel. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t need to find a way to still reconcile your belief in her with... the shitfest we find ourselves in.”

“It’ll sure show you when I walk out of here and faceplant in my own firey ash.”

“I think your problem, Gabriel, is that you don’t believe in yourself,” Aziraphale faced him. Watched his face journey as he looked for a next retort, yet found only the easy truth.

“Have you seen Supernatural?” Gabriel asked.

“I have heard a YouTube compilation of Crowley quotes over the speakers of my establishment with accompanied loud critique but no, I have not seen Supernatural,” Aziraphale called back to that moment with buried frustration and fondness.

“Well, Gabriel in it is... different. Everything is different it’s actually a terrible lens to view the reality of our bureaucracy but oh boy is it entertaining but that’s not the point. The point is... he’s so not me, but I would like him a lot more than I would like me.”

“I think... what you need is to heed the wisest words that carry through the centuries; it be like that sometimes. So what are you going to do about it?”

“What can I do about a fictional character?”

“What can you do about yourself. You are fundamentally unhappy with your current state of being-“

“Gee thanks”

“- so where else can you go? Certainly not where you are now. For better or worse, at least it will be different. Whatever it is that you want to do with yourself, whoever you want to be. You won’t find it as you are now.”

“Maybe that’s the point of these spaces.”

“Pardon?”

“You know, how they always seem to reset us to our core. A way to say, ‘you fucked up so bad you fell asleep on a bench in a rest stop, have a redo before you overdose on ketamine and die.’ How it’s probably the same for us, with less ketamine. Maybe.., it’s my turn to overdose on ketamine.”

“Please don’t.”

“Metaphorically.”

“Metaphorically overdose on ketamine.”

They stared at a tree about ten feet away.

“Every time you leave a space in the corner of Her eye, it does feel like you take something out with you, the feeling,” Gabriel said to the tree. It’s leaves never seemed to move correctly with the wind.

“So take that feeling, and use it.”

“I’m supposed to be the big brother figure, you know.”

“You had your turn,” Aziraphale smiled.

“I know most of the time I hate your guts, but does this mean I get a spot at the wedding?” Gabriel joked.

“Literally we just miracle ourselves married most of the time, since I’m kind of like, the divine authority. More than a pastor ever would be.”

“You’re so incredibly plainer than vanilla, I’ll plan the wedding myself.”

“Maybe... after this is all over, we’ll renew our vows-“

“Maybe She Herself can officiate?” Gabriel cracked a smile.

“You can walk me down the aisle” Aziraphale grinned. Gabriel sputtered at his next thought.

“Beelzebub will walk down with Crowley,” he said, barely holding in the hilarity of watching that.

“Michael can hold the rings, and one of the smaller demons will be the flower girls.”

“Michael would sooner eat the rings than watch you two be happy,” Gabriel said wistfully, a strong air of sadness sweeping them.

“We can only hope that could change...”

“Maybe... I can change... and be better. Not for Her... but for me,” Gabriel said, though he held himself in defeat already.

“If so, I look forward to meeting you again,” Aziraphale said, with ineffable truth, despite the alarming distraction as the clock hit eleven.

“I’ll be awaiting the wedding invitation,” Gabriel reminded.

“Goodbye, brother.”

**Author's Note:**

> I did start writing this while in the car at a rest stop on the American highway, yes.
> 
> _____________________________________________  
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